JSA and bank statements / savings

Peggypegs

I recently got sacked, and want to claim income support/JSA. I understand that if someone has a lot of savings in their account, it can be hard to claim JSA.

The problem is, I have about £25,000 in my savings account - but it's actually NOT my money, I am looking after it for a friend (she is really bad with money so I am managing her money for her).

I can transfer the money back to her, but it will show up in my statement and questions will be asked.

So I have two questions:

1. How many months' bank statements will I be required to provide in order to claim JSA?

2. If I transfer the money back to my friend's account and this shows up on my statement, can I get my friend to declare that the money belongs to her, and not to me? Will this be acceptable to the powers that be or is that wishful thinking...?!

alwaysonthego_2

How long was you working for? You may be able to claim contribution based JSA.

I would be honest with the DWP and explain the situation if you claim IBJSA because if they decide to investigate and see you have transferred £25K to a friend you could be classed as depriving yourself of capital and investitgated for fraud. It does sound very shaky ground your explanation unless you can prove your friend deposited the money and you have some kind of legal agreement as they are not many people willing to give their friend a huge sum of money to look after. I would think very carefully before you do anything because these things tend to come to light.

real1314

Peggypegs wrote: »

I recently got sacked, and want to claim income support/JSA. I understand that if someone has a lot of savings in their account, it can be hard to claim JSA.

The problem is, I have about £25,000 in my savings account - but it's actually NOT my money, I am looking after it for a friend (she is really bad with money so I am managing her money for her).

I can transfer the money back to her, but it will show up in my statement and questions will be asked.

So I have two questions:

1. How many months' bank statements will I be required to provide in order to claim JSA?

2. If I transfer the money back to my friend's account and this shows up on my statement, can I get my friend to declare that the money belongs to her, and not to me? Will this be acceptable to the powers that be or is that wishful thinking...?!

It's amazing how many people are prepared to hand money over to people without any documentation, evidence or agreements; and £25k at that!

How does someone who is really bad with money manage to amass £25k anyway? That strikes me as a pretty good amount of savings!

How did you arrange for her to pay the relevant tax on the interest? Did she declare the £25k to all relevant authorities as her money?

What's her financial situation? Does she work or what?


The actual answer to the question is that you have virtually no chance of claiming Income Based JSA unless you have strong written evidence which can be shown to date from the time when the transfer of cash took place.
If you start moving the cash around and do not declare what you have done, you may be found to have committed fraud.
However if you declare openly what you have done, you won't be treated as committing fraud, and would have to just "hope" any decision goes your way. :cool: